Lamar Alexander

WASHINGTON, June 7, 2018 – United States Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today said the Senate’s passage of his bill to expand the Shiloh National Military Park in Shiloh, Tennessee, will help attract more visitors to Tennessee, boost local economies, and protect the site for future generations.

Under the headline “GOP senators need an agenda — so they’re doing a poll,” Politico reports Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander and Texas Sen. Ted have been quietly circulating an unusual “survey” of their colleagues in recent weeks asking about their level of support for dozens of legislative proposals, some of them highly controversial.

Republicans are bitterly protesting the Trump administration’s decision to impose sweeping tariffs on U.S. allies with Tennessee’s two U.S. senators among them. Economically, there are suggestions Tennessee could suffer more than most states because of reliance on vehicle manufacturing and, politically, Politico reports Republicans are alarmed that the White House ignored their frenzied lobbying campaign and afraid that the party could suffer at the polls in November.

Lewis Lavine, who served as chief of staff to then-Gov. Lamar Alexander in the 1980s and went on to a career as a public relations specialist with a focus on non-profit organizations, died of heart failure Wednesday at the age of 71. He also was an advisor to Gov. Bill Haslam in the early days of the current governor’s administration.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke and U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander visited the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Saturday to lament the past lack of money for national park maintenance and to promote “The National Park Restoration Act,” a bill pending in Congress to change the situation, reports the News Sentinel.

President Trump’s approval rating in Tennessee stands at 56 percent, according to polling focused on Southern states and reported by NBC News. That’s higher than favorablity ratings for U.S. Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker; lower than for Gov. Bill Haslam.

Brentwood, TN – Today, Senator Lamar Alexander announced his endorsement of Marsha Blackburn for U.S. Senate. It is another clear sign that Tennesseans from across the state are rallying behind Blackburn for Senate.

Senator Lamar Alexandertweeted, “I have supported Marsha Blackburn as a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, and I support her again as a candidate for the United States Senate. She has served Tennesseans well. I look forward to working with her to make the Senate a more effective institution.”

“Lamar is a true public servant, and I am continually grateful for his support,” added Marsha Blackburn. “I look forward to working with him in the U.S. Senate to pass the President’s agenda. Together, we will effectively serve Tennesseans and fight for our shared Tennessee values.”

U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander says he’s hopeful for passage this year of “the National Park Restoration Act” that could wipe out about $7 billion of backlogged maintenance in the National Parks Service over the next decade, reports the Times Free Press.

U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander’s latest attempt to stabilize the nation’s health care insurance markets under the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, collapsed last week in partisan squabbling over abortion, reports Michael Collins. There was an accompanying “flurry of finger-pointing and bitter charges by each side that the other was playing politics.”